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ASSE's annual meeting

That was one safety proâ€™s simple explanation for the record 3,800 registrants at the American Society of Safety Engineersâ€™ annual conference held in Las Vegas this past June, topping the previous high of 2,900 in Denver last year.

Sin City, a giant adult movie set with 70,000 hotel rooms, is a hot convention destination, no doubt. â€œWeâ€™re out-pulling all the other cities,â€ crowed a cabbie on his way to the mammoth meeting hall.

â€œCompanies used to resist sending their people to Las Vegas,â€ said one attendee. â€œBut now the flights and rooms are so cheap it makes the decision easier.â€

Especially with the economy on the upswing. â€œThatâ€™s another factor,â€ said this attendee. â€œPeople finally believe that business is coming back and theyâ€™re traveling again.â€

Location and economy aside, ASSE officials would like to think their conference program had something to do with the record turnout. ASSEâ€™s meeting is getting the rep for focusing on how to manage and lead people. â€œSafety is primarily a social problem,â€ said Don Eckenfelder, a speaker at the ASSE meeting.

â€œSafety is about changing behaviors and cultures. This is where I learn about that,â€ said one safety director.

Indeed. Eckenfelderâ€™s talk, as well as eight other educational sessions at the ASSE meeting, had the word â€œcultureâ€ in the title. What is it about organizational behavior thatâ€™s so popular with safety pros today?

Culture is king

A convergence of trends is promoting the â€œsoftâ€ side of safety:

1) Been there, done that. After education, engineering and enforcement, what do you focus on? â€œYou have to learn how to talk to people, listen and persuade. Pushing numbers and formulas and regulations wonâ€™t motivate people,â€ said a safety manager at the ASSE meeting.

2) Outsourcing. Technical EHS work is more and more the province of consultants, leaving in-house pros to focus on organizational issues.

3) All quiet on the compliance front. (â€œHenshaw had absolutely nothing new to say,â€ said a reporter coming back from the OSHA chiefâ€™s ASSE speech.)

4) Beyond behavior. Consultants who led the cheers for behavior-based safety in the late 1990s have moved on. At the ASSE meeting, Behavior Science Technology focused on its new contract to reshape NASAâ€™s safety culture. Dr. E. Scott Geller discussed personality traits and â€œyour safety IQ.â€

5) Other issues are stalled. Many pros resist the so-called business case for safety, arguing it sends the wrong message to employees.

New performance metrics for safety, measures more reliable and relevant than OSHA data, have been discussed for years without gaining traction.

6) Make way for the bandwagon. â€œManagement thinks culture change is the answer to everything,â€ said Dr. Steven Simon, introduced at his session in Las Vegas as the â€œfather of safety culture.â€

â€œEveryone is talking about this,â€ said Eckenfelder. â€œLouis Gerstner, former IBM chairman, said, â€˜Culture is the game.â€™â€

7) The fear factor. Who wants to miss a seat on the bus? â€œWeâ€™ve worked on all the other things and ignored culture,â€ said Eckenfelder. â€œIgnore this at your own professional peril. We need to take the lead with social sciences and not get left in the slipstream.â€

Staying power?

â€œThis is a whole new way to look at safety,â€ said Eckenfelder, referring to what he called a â€œsafety culture enrichment program.â€

Actually, itâ€™s taken decades for organizational culture to become a hot safety issue. Long-time management consultant Dan Petersen wrote about safety cultures in his first two books, published in the early 1970s, and he admits he â€œborrowedâ€ from the concepts of Rensis Likert, who researched organizational cultures in the 1960s.

Why has it taken so long for culture to catch on?

Not all managers share Gerstnerâ€™s enthusiasm. â€œPeople thought we dreamed this up in a hot tub eating alfalfa sprouts,â€ said Simon. â€œ(Culture change strategy) was seen as real fringe stuff.â€ To some execs it has never left the hot tub.

Itâ€™s no quick fix. Many corporations â€” and their shareholders â€” are short on patience these days. â€œItâ€™s a five to seven year journey to impact a culture,â€ said Simon. â€œCulture is not a magic pill.â€

Culture canâ€™t be canned. Behavior-based safety took off in part because the observation and feedback format was simple to present and easy to track. â€œCulture is not susceptible to programs because it is what happens in an organization when no one is watching,â€ said Simon. â€œItâ€™s the assumptions and beliefs that influence decisions and feelings.â€

New skills are needed. â€œCulture change is not an involvement game,â€ said Simon (in contrast to behavioral safety). It can involve 10-15 percent of all employees, he explained, but it must have leadership sponsors.

Culture change strategies are not typically the stuff of safety committees, said Simon, pointing to the need for executive leadership, perception surveys, aligning with business objectives, and plans and projects to change organizational norms.

Eckenfelder was more direct: â€œSafety cultures donâ€™t rely on manuals, safety departments, new equipment, procedures, committees and statistics,â€ he said.

Denial runs deep. Culture change exposes the dark side of organizations, and many execs donâ€™t want to go there. â€œItâ€™s the dark stuff, the negativesâ€ that must be confronted, said Simon. Issues such as double standards, mistrust, slow follow-up, blame-fixing, no accountability, no management visibility, emphasizing numbers over people, lack of commitment, lack of concern.

These cultural cracks canâ€™t be fixed by Monday. Canned programs wonâ€™t help. Nothing changes until execs are willing to open up to perception surveys and climate assessments.

So will the current buzz over culture change for safetyâ€™s sake have staying power? Some formidable barriers stand in the way. But right now, culture is as hot as a Las Vegas parking lot.

Among the articles in the June 2020 issue of ISHN Magazine, we offer a detailed analysis of different types of face masks, discuss long-term solutions for businesses figuring out their COVID-19 response plans, focus on hand protection, and much more.